Ernest - Abismo azul

Ernest M. is a young Cuban artist trained in the city of Manzanillo, Granma, in eastern Cuba. He currently lives and works in Havana, where he continues to develop a constant painting production and an artistic career centered, to a large extent, on the investigation of the human figure and its relationship with the aquatic environment.

During the past years, the artist has developed a series dedicated to immersion, water, and the human figure, turning these elements into one of the most recognizable features of his pictorial language. Women suspended beneath the surface, faces pierced by reflections, fish, movements of the hair, optical distortions, bubbles, and changes of light repeatedly appear in his compositions, not as simple decorative resources, but as part of a visual universe that is increasingly well defined.

One of the most interesting aspects of his painting is precisely the treatment of water as a pictorial and psychological element. Ernest manages to represent the water surface, reflections, and the distortions produced by light through brushstrokes that oscillate between figuration, expressive realism, and moments close to hyperrealism. However, his intention does not seem limited to faithfully reproducing a scene: he uses those distortions to transform the face and the human body, creating images that lie between the real, the dreamlike, and the introspective.

His palette is clearly dominated by deep blues, turquoises, greens, and marine tones, which frequently contrast with reds, ochres, oranges, and warm hues applied to the skin, the fish, the flowers, or the reflections. This chromatic opposition gives the works a strong visual presence and makes the figure emerge from the underwater background even when it seems completely integrated into it.

It is also characteristic how the artist works composition. In many of his paintings, the flotation line cuts directly across the face or body of the character, dividing the image into two realities. In others, the viewer observes the scene completely submerged. That choice creates a sense of silence, suspension, and isolation that appears repeatedly in his work. Water thus becomes a boundary, refuge, and space of transformation.

Within the series there are compositions of a more intimate and contemplative character, while others present a more free, gestural, and expressive painting. This variety allows us to observe the evolution of an artist who continually experiments within a recognizable theme without being confined to a single formula.

Another notable aspect is the materiality of the works. The photographs allow us to appreciate the general structure of the compositions and their chromatic richness, but the painting acquires a considerably greater dimension when viewed physically, where the variations in brushwork, color overlays, texture, and the small changes of light with which depth is built can be better perceived.

The repetition of certain elements—the female figure, the fish, the partially submerged face, the floating hair, the surface reflections, and the intense blue of the water—is helping to configure a recognizable artistic identity. In a young creator, this coherence is especially meaningful, as it demonstrates the will to build a continued body of work and not just isolated pieces.

Ernest currently maintains an active artistic production and continues developing his career through exhibitions and projects both in Cuba and in Spain and other international contexts. His works have progressively found buyers and collectors outside of Cuba and are currently part of private collections and galleries in different countries of Europe and Latin America.

His paintings are also regularly offered at auctions on Catawiki, where his work has been well received by the public and collectors.

Acquiring a work by Ernest means approaching the work of a young Cuban artist who is still growing, but who already possesses especially valuable elements within an emerging trajectory: a clearly identifiable theme, continuity in his pictorial research, growing mastery of color and water representation, and above all the search for a personal visual identity.

His aquatic series currently represents one of the more personal branches of his production and constitutes a good example of how a seemingly everyday motif can be transformed, through painting, into a reflection on the body, identity, silence, beauty, and perception.

Water does not function only as a setting in Ernest’s work: it acts as a second language that fragments, transforms, and reconstructs the human figure.

Artwork by the artist Ernest created in the technique of oil on high-quality professional canvas.
Dimension 60 x 80 cm of painting.
Original edition.
Shipping will be carried out through United Parcel Service (UPS) for Spain and Europe, and through FedEx for the rest of the world. The piece will be rolled and protected with multiple layers of packaging, bubble wrap, and placed in a sturdy tube.
Once the artwork is paid for, three days are required for the packing process and delivery to the shipping company.
The piece will reach you within ten days, depending on the destination country.
This lot contains AI-generated visuals. Check the original photographs to verify the artwork’s real condition.

This captivating oil-on-canvas work captures the graceful immersion of a diver in the depths of a marine environment imbued with light and dynamism. The composition stands out for an enveloping low-angle shot where sunbeams filter through the water’s surface, creating golden glints and luminous reflections that refract on the figure’s skin and the upper waves. The painterly technique of fluid, expressive brushstrokes gives the scene a notable sense of continuous motion, heightened by the bubbles rising to the surface, the undulation of the hair, and the subtle companionship of a fish to the right. The rich color range, characterized by the gradual transition from vivid turquoise tones to deep cobalt blues in the background, envelops the protagonist in an atmosphere of calm, freedom, and direct communion with the ocean’s majesty."